Both Kant and James claim to limit the role of knowledge in order to make room for faith. In this paper, we argue that despite some similarities, their attempts to do this come apart. Our main claim is that, although both Kant and James justify our adopting religious beliefs on practical grounds, James believes that we can—and should—subsequently assess such beliefs on the basis of evidence. We offer our own account of this evidence and discuss what this difference means for (...) their accounts of religious belief. (shrink)

This article canvasses the model of history of philosophy developed by the French philosopher Charles Renouvier in the second half of the nineteenth century. Such a model rested on a precise assumption: the entire history of philosophy would be nothing more than the diachronic embodiment of sets of contradictory conceptual pairs, which Renouvier calls “dilemmas” and whose solution would only be practical. The aim of this article is not only to lay out the distinctive traits of Renouvier’s history of philosophy (...) but also to highlight the militant nature of his historiography. In fact, the theory of dilemmas was pitted against the historiographical model that was dominant in Renouvier’s formative years, namely the eclectic spiritualism of Victor Cousin, who rather sought to distil from each philosophical system its truth content. In this context, the history of philosophy, far from being the philological discipline it is for us today, has in fact a primarily instrumental and polemical, if not political, value. (shrink)

Hacia la segunda mitad del siglo XIX, una fuerte actitud positivista dio forma a un mundo determinado. El método científico parecía exigir la continuidad del sistema causal en todas las dimensiones de los fenómenos, lo cual entró en tensión con todo lo relativo a la estructura motivacional y volitiva del sujeto. William James interviene en el debate, tiene en cuenta diversas aristas del problema y pone en juego su lectura de los psicólogos ingleses (Mill, Bain y Spencer) y de Renouvier. (...) Daremos cuenta de las consecuencias vitales que tiene el problema del determinismo para el estadounidense, en qué sentido los psicólogos ingleses son deterministas, como se les opone Renouvier y el modo en que James se apropia estratégicamente de los argumentos del francés haciéndolos operar a distintos niveles en su reflexión psicológica y filosófica. (shrink)

ABSTRACTClarisse Coignet played an important role in a number of the most important intellectual movements in nineteenth-century France. She grew up around and documented the leaders of...

This paper proposes an alternative perspective on the question of the relationship between German Idealism and American Pragmatism through attention to the philosophy of Josiah Royce. Despite being seen as a Hegelian, Royce declared himself a pragmatist. However, he also called his position Absolute Voluntarism. This paper suggests that the real issue between Idealism and Pragmatism is Intellectualism vs. Voluntarism. This distinction both parallels and cuts across the traditions of German Idealism and American Pragmatism, and promises to open up a (...) view broader than the traditional accounts of the qualified appreciation of Hegel seen in Peirce and Dewey, or the outright antipathy of James. With Peirce, we see that his continual call for Royce to study logic includes, or complements, his criticisms that Royce neglects Secondness. Regarding James, we see his influence on Royce is mediated also in their mutual study of Wundt’s voluntaristic psychology, which has its own roots in the pre-Kantian German Idealism of Leibniz. As for Dewey, he acknowledges Royce’s voluntarism, but rejects Royce’s claim that his Absolute Pragmatism/Voluntarism is pragmatism at all. Nonetheless, even if Royce failed to fuse his idealism and pragmatism, the very effort suggests he saw them as distinct enough to need fusion. (shrink)